Entrapment techniques like that make me sick.
What was the entrapment? The FBI sold phones to suspected criminals and monitored the conversations, didn’t they?
Entrapment techniques like that make me sick.
What was the entrapment? The FBI sold phones to suspected criminals and monitored the conversations, didn’t they?
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Nonsense. How do you market an encryption platform exclusively to criminals? That may have been their target but there would be a large number of innocents that downloaded this as a secure messaging system.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yes, it was marketed in the dark web marketplaces as “the phone for criminals”
That app could run only on a special custom ROM. It was a dedicated phone, a Google pixel 4a with locked bootloader and a custom ROM that exclusively allowed to communicate with other anom users. You don’t buy a $2000 phone that could only communicate with other $2000 phones if you don’t have something to hide.
It might have happened that maybe a millionaire with disposable income bought a set to talk with his secret girl affair but those were definitely the minority
sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Apparently through word of mouth and suggestions by undercover agents.
The app wasn’t made available for download. The FBI bought a few thousand Pixels, flashed a custom ROM onto them, and then installed the messaging apps. In theory they cost thousands of dollars to buy.
It’s entirely possible some innocents used the system, but it’s unclear how selling rooted hardware to alleged criminals would induce them to commit crime.
See www.npr.org/2024/05/31/…/fbi-phone-company-anom